MSIM’s Summer Book Project

The directed study group looked at ways in which management can learn from the current Covid-19 pandemic. Earhart and Cath wanted students to consider how they might apply theoretical and pragmatic management approaches to better understand the challenges anthropogenic climate change may create. “Can we really expect the same social, political and economic systems that failed to prevent and effectively mitigate the Covid-19 pandemic to do the same with anthropogenic climate change?” asks Earhart. “We are offering a clear case for an ongoing and profound engagement with the very forces that threaten to destroy us so that we can rethink how we strategically address complex global challenges at the most fundamental level.” 

In total, five students contributed chapters to the book; Kevin Jarussi ’20 was one of them. “I’m originally from Montana in the United States, where my family has a ranch,” he explains. “Professor Cath suggested that I do an autoethnographic study about my family’s land.” Kevin Jarussi spoke to ranchers in the region, along with the head of the Montana Organic Association, to get a sense of how the pandemic was affecting the local agricultural industry. “Covid exposed a lot of cracks in the food supply chain, but it also led to farmers making connections that they might not otherwise have made.” Kevin proposed ways in which local knowledge and talent could be leveraged to foster relationships between agricultural workers that would be economically and environmentally sustainable in the long term. 

He went on to turn the project into a way to fulfill his internship requirements, collaborating with both professors all along the book’s publication: “I now know the entire self-publishing process – from designing and organizing, to submitting the finished product.” He also produced a consulting report for the University, analyzing the costs and benefits of creating a permanent MSIM press. Kevin now works for a Minneapolis-based startup, Ethos, which has created a data platform for ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) investing. The company has just finished its pre-seed round of funding. Kevin’s professional trajectory is an example of the kind of career reorientation that the MSIM program can facilitate. 

“We are finalizing a second book which is produced by a new quintet of student authors,” says Professor Cath. The new publication – which explores the concept of hyper-management, or the management of organizations subject to complex forces beyond human control – questions how well strategic management frameworks perform in diverse contexts, such as climate change, growing economic inequality, and the ongoing global pandemic. “A simple question from one student in the summer of 2020 has now led to this book project becoming part and parcel of the entire MSIM program,” explains Cath. “We like that kind of emergence.”